My childhood Jesus

preface: every other week i'll be writing a program for the college aged group that i work with. most weeks this will include an essay of sorts (also called a "message" or "sermon" or "meditatin". since i see much power in words i'm careful to not call it the s-word and usually go essay or meditaition) so i figured i'd post these here on the blog. some of you will probably choose to never read these posts, and that's cool, i figure i'll post 'em anyway :O)

this week we started reading the book 'meeting jesus again for the first time' and in that book the author talks about his 'childhood jesus' and how that image changed for him as he grew up, went to college and then on to seminary. we used this theme of 'childhood jesus' to start our discussion tonight. so i wrote a bit about who my childhood jesus was and really continues to be. happy friday!

My childhood Jesus.
Whenever I talk about my faith inevitably the question of Jesus comes up. I suppose this is only natural as I am a Christian, but I’ve never really had a good answer. I’ve always seen myself as more of a God person than a Jesus person. See for me growing up I was always a little scared of loving Jesus too much. Starting in about 6th grade I saw the kids wearing their WWJD bracelets…and t-shirts…and hats…and buttons…and…you get the idea. They wore those letters like a banner, like they were better than me because I wouldn’t wear my faith on a t-shirt. I’ve never disliked an acronym so much in my life. It really annoys me that Jesus was a fad. Because you see, I think it’s a good thing to think about what Jesus would do. Example, you’re about to walk past a homeless person who’s in need of some food, do you walk on by or do you stop and talk and help them. Well, what wouldJesus do? We know that he would stop and talk to the homeless man, find out why he needs food, what he wants and how he could help him. If we were truly doing what Jesus would do we would do the same. And yet, how many teens wearing those four letters did that? it wasn't so much about action as it was about having the cool tshirt.
In a letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians he has this to say about behavior: 12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. It seems like this is an old school version of WWJD. Those four letters are a way to help you think about your behavior and what, if anything, you could change. If that is how you look at those four letters, then it's a good thing. My experience is that people didn't use them as a guide, more as status symbol, and that I'm not a huge fan of.
As I have said, I was not a child of WWJD. I didn't own anything with those letters. My childhood Jesus was was not one of T-shirts and buttons, but of songs and stories. I remember one of the songs we used to sing in Sunday school, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white we are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” That was my childhood Jesus. One of love for everyone. We were not a house of icons so I didn’t have a picture of Jesus on the wall, but we were a house of words, stories, and songs so I had the image of a guy hanging out with everyone. And that was my childhood Jesus. In the book Borg talks about how when he went to seminary his vision of Jesus changes, he sees a childhood Jesus and an historical Jesus. I have my childhood Jesus, and then I suppose I have my grown up Jesus. You see, I think we are all children of God, and therefore, Jesus loves all of us. Red, yellow, black, white, gay, straight, married, single, young, old and everything in between. I think that even if you don’t accept that Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you. I believe so much in this childhood Jesus that it hurts for me to see people use Jesus to condemn others. I’m sure as I continue to grow up and learn more about Jesus my vision of him will change. Heading off to seminary will no doubt bring about some academic revelations, but I still think that my childhood Jesus, and his take home message, will prove enduring. A few years ago I taught 2nd and 3rd grade bible study. My teaching partner and I decided that if our kids learned nothing else, they would learn to love each other. We thought that if they associated our church, the bible, and Jesus with loving each other that we would have done our job. When you think about how many different kinds of people there are in this world loving everyone seems harder to do that it first appears. It’s the one thing I have consistently tried to do from my childhood into my adulthood. In my opinion it’s the most worthwhile thing that we as Christians can do.

P.S. my friend tom has a friend in seminary who has a tshirt that says "WTFWJD" and my friend diana has a sign that says 'what would jesus drink' hilarious if you ask me :O)